When one or two drivers start to run away with the majority of top-five finishes, such as we are seeing with Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott at the moment – or like we saw for a period last year with Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin – bettors and gamers need to come up with a different way to gauge strength.
If Hendrick Motorsports is in a class of their own, who is the best of the rest?
Last month, we looked at NASCAR’s Statistical Service’s Driver Rating for a 45-day period from the Bristol Motor Speedway Dirt Track thru Darlington Raceway.
This week we are looking at Average Running Position for a similar 45 day range dating back to the Kansas Speedway race.
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Often, at the very top of the order, the statistics bear out common perception. Larson appears to be the strongest driver because he has been. Five of the top 25 Average Running Positions in the past 45 days belong to the driver of the No. 5. The only time he did not post an average strong enough to make this list was at Darlington Raceway, but he barely missed the mark with the sixth-best running position of 7.30.
Larson enters the inaugural Nashville Superspeedway with a current five-race streak of first- or second-place finishes. As solid as that is – it could be better. At Kansas Speedway, Larson posted an average of 3.21 and was poised to win until a late-race caution put him in traffic. He tried to bump draft Ryan Blaney into the lead in a sprint to the checkers and almost wrecked them both. Larson finished 19th. His late-race issue is one of the reasons we track strength-based stats.
Chase Elliott would seem to be the second-best driver at the moment. That is where he ranks in our most recent Power Ranking and he has been Larson’s closest competitor in the last two races.
The numbers bear out the assumption as Elliott is one of four drivers with three or more mentions in the chart below. Statistically, his best outing was in the Coke 600 where he had the second-best rating of 2.64 behind Larson. That shows that he was almost never outside the top five in a 600-mile race. He was also strong at Sonoma Raceway and Dover International Speedway.
What’s missing? Elliott’s victory at the Circuit of the Americas was accompanied by an Average Running Position of only 8.37 because he struggled for a while in the middle stages of that rain-soaked race.
Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron also has three lines in the chart below. His best performance came in the Coke 600 as HMS dominated that show. In fact, they’ve been dominating for the past couple of months and the competition is rushing to catch up. With Larson’s five lines below, Elliott and Byron’s three apiece, and another for Alex Bowman at Dover, they occupy nearly half the chart.
That doesn’t leave a lot of room for anyone else. But Kyle Busch has managed to make his presence known three times as well. His Buschy McBusch 400 win was no fluke as he had the second-best running position of 3.70 behind Larson. Busch has also been strong in the Coke 600 and the Texas Grand Prix – notably, races that held practice sessions.
Other drivers with two appearances included Hamlin, Martin Truex Jr., and Joey Logano. These drivers have been much less consistent over the past month and a half, however, and it has been difficult to handicap them with any degree of confidence.
Truex and Hamlin have finished outside the top 10 in two of the last six races and generally struggled throughout those events. Logano has three double-digit finishes in that same span. Truex gets a partial pass, however, because he won the Goodyear 400 at Darlington with an absolutely great running position of 1.47.
Average Running Position, Last 45 Days
Top-25
Driver | Avg. Run | Finish | Race |
1.32 | 1 | Coke 600 | |
1.47 | 1 | Goodyear 400 | |
Kyle Larson (2) | 1.47 | 2 | Drydene 400 |
Chase Elliott (3) | 2.64 | 2 | Coke 600 |
Kyle Larson (3) | 3.18 | 1 | Save Mart 350k |
3.21 | 4 | Coke 600 | |
Kyle Larson (4) | 3.21 | 19 | Buschy McBusch 400 |
3.70 | 1 | Buschy McBusch 400 | |
William Byron (2) | 4.16 | 4 | Drydene 400 |
4.19 | 3 | Buschy McBusch 400 | |
4.31 | 5 | Goodyear 400 | |
4.66 | 6 | Drydene 400 | |
4.75 | 2 | Save Mart 350k | |
Kyle Busch (2) | 5.41 | 3 | Coke 600 |
Chase Elliott (2) | 5.64 | 3 | Drydene 400 |
Denny Hamlin (2) | 5.64 | 7 | Drydene 400 |
5.69 | 1 | Drydene 400 | |
6.22 | 13 | Goodyear 400 | |
William Byron (3) | 6.40 | 4 | Goodyear 400 |
Joey Logano (2) | 6.59 | 3 | Texas Grand Prix |
Kyle Busch (3) | 6.80 | 10 | Texas Grand Prix |
Kevin Harvick (2) | 7.00 | 10 | Coke 600 |
7.02 | 12 | Goodyear 400 | |
Kyle Larson (5) | 7.15 | 2 | Texas Grand Prix |
Martin Truex Jr. (2) | 7.26 | 3 | Save Mart 350k |
AVERAGE RUNNING POSITION: DAYTONA THRU LAS VEGAS [/edge/article/statistically-speaking/gauging-power-through-average-running-position]
DRIVER RATING: BRISTOL THRU DARLINGTON [/edge/article/statistically-speaking/driver-rating-bristol-darlington]
BATTLING AT THE FRONT: LAPS IN THE TOP 15 [/edge/article/statistically-speaking/battling-front-laps-top-15]
